Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday December 13, 2012 @06:16PM
from the how-now-found-mao dept.

hackingbear writes "One of the Chinese Web censorship's central features has long been blocking searches for the names of top leaders to maintain their public images. Sina Weibo, China's largest microblog service, unblocked searches for the names of many top political leaders in a possible sign of looser controls a month after new senior officials were named to head the ruling party, though a number of other senior leaders are still blocked on Weibo, including Premier Web Jiabao. That (President) Xi might be leading by example on softening Web censorship could be a promising sign for future reforms. It isn't on a major shift, but it could portend one."

It's true, although Chinese parents can select any one or two characters to name their child from the thousands of characters in common use and the tens of thousands out of common use, there are a few hundred characters that tend to be used disproportionately often.

As for surnames, the top 100 most common surnames make up more than 85% of the country's population and over 1/5 of Chinese are called either "Wang", "Li" or "Zhang".

People having the same name as a leader is quite common. I know at least two guys who cannot write their own name on Weibo because they are called "Li Peng", using the exact same two characters as the former premier (who's name IS still blocked and will be as long as he is still alive for reasons you can look up yourself).

As for Chaiman Xi, his surname is not particularly common and his given name is not common either, however they are all common words. You cannot ask someone "are you familiar with the nearby plain?" without writing his name for example.

It's relevant because web censorship in China is being slightly reduced. Considering web is part of tech and this is a tech website, posting it here makes sense.

Based upon a recent BBC report, there is a majority of Chinese who will go right along with anything the government wants to do, because the consider the Goverment practically a member of the family -- like a wise parent looking after them -- and go so far as to take pride in that. What's more important to the Chinese people is cutting down corruption, not censorship.

a majority of Chinese who will go right along with anything the government wants to do, because the consider the Goverment practically a member of the family -- like a wise parent looking after them

Not if you are Chinese and speak to Chinese people outside of earshot of foreigners. Face, especially when outsiders are present, is important.

As for the logic of yet another "it's their culture" argument, well suppose for a moment you're right about the citizens' love and appreciation for government, can we accept that apathy over limitations on personal freedoms happens in the US as well? It's often said on/. that Americans are apathetic about censorship, yet Americans are lambasted as sheep/stupid, even

Dear god people if you dont know anything about the topic dont post....

China blocked the names of a number of their leaders of late (on Weibo [twitter] and Sina [google]) for a few reasons:1. There may have been an attempted coup - that accounts for a few names2. There for sure was the downfall of a major regional leader (Bo Xilai) under very ugly circumstances (right hand man tried to defect to US embassy to avoid being murdered,wife poisoned a spy, etc.)3. There was a huge NYT article calling out Hu Jintao that was straight propaganda - so much so that they disseminated a chinese language pdf of the article to the general web4. The old leader Jiang Zhemin has been near death and rumors have swirled.5. Some other guys kid wrecked a car and killed some people

THESE ARE THE REASONS WHY THOSE NAMES WERE CENSORED. This doesnt portend to any changes. Watch the next few years as freeing China becomes a constant narrative....

I could give the reasons why they have unblocked them now but id rather get out to a party. Try to RTFA and then RSMFAs before posting nonsense.

Don't read motives of the Chinese from a western perspective. China's leaders and its people have never been exposed to or experienced free speech, and/or anything resembling democracy in their history. Understanding the why, or even if this is a significant development isn't so easy.

The only thing I read in that. They did something that caught the attention of any people or organizations that look for a political, democratic, human rights, free

I know I probably shouldn't say this, and my comment might get modded down quite badly.

But those people who think that the Internet's control should be taken away from the US and handed to the UN should really look at what other countries in the UN do with their Internet. I know it is bad that US uses copyright laws as excuse to take over domains, like MegaUpload. However you can still search Barack Obama on the US Internet without any problem. I think having US controlling the Internet is the lesser of two